


The Old Days

by PipGirl



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:04:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8693920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PipGirl/pseuds/PipGirl
Summary: While tracking down Eddie Winter, the Sole Survivor and Nick discover one more holotape than they expected: one addressed to Nora, from Winter himself.





	

**The Old Days, version one**

Nate grinned in triumph as he scooped up the tenth and final Winter tape. It was about damned time. He'd spent enough time with Valentine to know that he was a good man, and the least he could do to thank the detective for all his help in finding Shaun (despite how it turned out) was to help him clear this case from his files. They'd been through a lot together, crossing the Commonwealth multiple times as the trail to the Institute ran hot and cold, and now that it was destroyed, they'd turned their attention to Eddie Winter. The rotten bastard didn't stand a chance with Nate and Nick after him. Nate opened his mouth to call to Nick in the next room and let him know he had the last holotape, but something caught his eye. Another tape, one that had fallen off the shelf and lay half obscured beneath old papers. He bent to pick it up and felt his breath hitch when he saw the label.

“Message to Assistant D.A. Nora Carlisle.”

His hand shook, and carefully he loaded it into his pipboy. He'd known that Nora had worked closely with the Boston PD, and he shouldn't have been surprised to find mention of her. He should have been more surprised that he didn't find something sooner. He began to smile fondly, his eyes tearing, as memories of her came rushing back. She was so passionate about her work, throwing herself into it, spending as many or more hours at her office as she did at home...he was about to get a tiny glimpse into that part of her life he'd never been able to share before.

The recording began, and he didn't know what he'd expected, but it hadn't been Eddie Winter's voice.

“Naughty, naughty, counselor. Jenny's corpse ain't even cold yet and you jump into bed with little Nicky Valentine. Or so a little bird tells me. Well, a little bird and a few dozen photos of you and Nicky checking into the Lenox Hotel two Fridays ago and leaving Saturday morning. Wasn't that war hero husband of yours on a speaking tour then? A real shame, what you're doing to a real live American hero. Fortunately, I'm a patriotic American and I'm willing to let these photos disappear. But first, you're gonna make a deal with Mikey Murphy. Drop the murder charge, Mikey pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter, because he obviously never meant to run over poor Salvatore de Rossi with his car. It was an accident. He gets five to ten, eligible for parole in two. Otherwise Mr. Marine Corps poster boy gets to find out that his wifey ain't exactly _Semper Fidelis_."

At some point during the playback, his knees had buckled and he had thudded to the floor. He sat there, dazed, staring at his pipboy, completely unbelieving. He heard Nick's footsteps approaching the door and he levered himself back up quickly just as Nick stepped into the room.

“Find anything in here?” Nick asked, oblivious to the bombshell Nate had just suffered.

Nate managed to find his voice. “Y-yeah. Here it is. The last tape.” He handed it over. Nick said something in reply, but Nate had no idea what. Instead, he was trapped inside his own head, his rushing thoughts piling up on one another as he tried to figure out what to do. This Nick, his friend, had never even met Nora. He couldn't blame him for what he'd just listened to. But wouldn't he remember what the old Nick had done? Nate talked about Nora all the time; there'd been plenty of opportunities for Nick to at least mention that he'd known her. Or maybe it was a lie. Maybe Winter was just hoping something was going on between the two, and was trying to bluff Nora. Surely that was it. Nora would never have cheated on him, and he couldn't imagine Nick having an affair with a married woman. If he'd known she was married, if it had really happened, if if if....

He managed to bring himself back to the present when Nick gripped his arm lightly. “Are you all right, Nate?”

Nate shook himself a little. “Yeah, I'm all right.” He decided to test the waters a little. “You know, Nora used to work with the police a lot. I guess this place just...made me think of her.”

Nick seemed a little too still for a moment, but then nodded in understanding. “I'm sorry, I should have thought about that possibility before dragging you into this.”

“It's all right, Nick. I'm here because I want to help.” Nate pulled himself together and led the way out of the building. They would find Eddie Winter, and he'd learn for himself what was true or not.

 

They found Eddie Winter, and Nate let Nick gun him down without asking him about the tape. Afterward, though, when Nick said there was something he needed to do and that Nate could tag along if he wanted, he demurred, saying he wanted to search the room first. Nick had nodded and headed back above ground, and Nate had begun a desperate search, hoping like hell that he wouldn't find anything.

His hopes, as with so many hopes, were in vain.

In the bottom of Winter's safe lay a folder. Nate withdrew it, his whole body trembling, knowing before he opened it what he would find. He opened it anyway.

The photos were of Nora. There were dozens, as Winter had claimed, of her and a man Nate didn't recognize but whose carriage and body language reminded him completely of Nick Valentine. Photos of them outside the Lenox, entering the hotel, leaving it in different clothes, presumably on a different day. And between those, photos shot through one of the hotel windows that showed the couple in their room, naked, Valentine taking her in ways Nate would never have dared, and Nora clearly enraptured by him.

There was no way that Nick-- his Nick, the present-day Nick-- could have forgotten that.

He stormed out of the building and back up onto the street, anger the only thing keeping him from throwing up.

He found Nick standing on the broken road, staring down at the pavement like a man lost. Nick looked up as he approached and started to say something, but Nate cut him off by shoving the folder into his hands. Nick frowned and flicked open the folder with his metal hand, freezing as soon as he saw the first picture.

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

Nick didn't bother flipping through the rest of the photos; he just closed the folder and handed it back to Nate. “Tell you what, that the man I used to be betrayed you in the worst way possible? That your wife wasn't the saint you thought she was, that she was human like anybody else?” Nick regarded him sadly. “What would that have helped?”

“So you do remember?” Nate's hands clenched into fists.

“Of course I remember.” Nick's shoulders slumped. “Nora's not the sort of woman you can forget.” After a pause, he added, “Even if they are someone else's memories.”

“No. You don't get away with this that easy.” When Nick met his eyes, Nate said, “The original Valentine betrayed me by sleeping with my wife. But you betrayed me by not telling me. You knew, Nick. You knew what she'd done, and you let me think everything was all right. That she was the woman I thought she was all those years.”

“Aw, Nate.” Nick rubbed at his eyes, such a human gesture, but still habit. “She was that woman all those years. She wasn't a terrible person. Neither was I-- I mean, the old Nick. But they were both hurting, and they found something in each other they couldn't find anywhere else.”

_“So it's my fault?”_ Nate shouted. “I did something to drive her into your arms? Is that it?”

“No, that's not what I meant. But I-- Nick had just lost Jenny, and Nora was feeling kind of lost herself after having Shaun, and it was all overwhelming them both. They didn't mean to hurt you. They didn't mean for you to ever find out.” Nick looked to be in absolute agony, but Nate didn't care. Not now.

“Well, forgive me, but for some reason that doesn't make me feel better.” Nate turned and stalked away from the first-- hell, the only-- real friend he'd made in the Commonwealth. Nick didn't follow.

He didn't know where he was going or what he was doing. He realized he was still carrying the folder and looked down at it in his hands as he walked. He thought about just throwing it down, but god help him, the thought of throwing away the only photos he had of Nora made him as sick as the thought of looking at them again. They helped him pick a direction, though, and eventually, when Nick made it back to Diamond City, he found the folder lying on his bed and Nate nowhere around. Without a word to Ellie, he retrieved an empty file box, put the single folder inside, and slid the box under his bed. He understood why Nate couldn't just throw them away.

And for the same reason, he would keep them.

~~~~~

**The Old Days, version two**

Nora grinned in triumph as she scooped up the tenth and final Winter tape. It was about damned time. She and Nick had been through a lot together, crossing the Commonwealth multiple times as the trail to the Institute ran hot and cold, and now that it was destroyed, they'd turned their attention to Eddie Winter. The rotten bastard didn't stand a chance with Nick and Nora after him. She opened her mouth to call to Nick in the next room and let him know they had the last holotape, but something caught her eye. Another tape, one that had fallen off the shelf and lay half obscured beneath old papers. She bent to pick it up and felt her breath hitch when she saw the label.

“Message to Assistant D.A. Nora Carlisle.”

She didn't have to play it. She knew damned well what was on the tape, but like tearing away an old scab, she loaded it into her pipboy.

“Naughty, naughty, counselor. Jenny's corpse ain't even cold yet and you jump into bed with little Nicky Valentine. Or so a little bird tells me. Well, a little bird and a few dozen photos of you and Nicky checking into the Lenox Hotel two Fridays ago and leaving Saturday morning. Wasn't that war hero husband of yours on a speaking tour then? A real shame, what you're doing to a real live American hero. Fortunately, I'm a patriotic American and I'm willing to let these photos disappear. But first, you're gonna make a deal with Mikey Murphy. Drop the murder charge, Mikey pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter, because he obviously never meant to run over poor Salvatore de Rossi with his car. It was an accident. He gets five to ten, eligible for parole in two. Otherwise Mr. Marine Corps poster boy gets to find out that his wifey ain't exactly _Semper Fidelis_."

The memories flooding back almost took her to her knees. She remembered that weekend. Vividly. And it wasn't the only one. She and Nick Valentine-- the original Nick Valentine-- had spent every moment they could together. He was in pain, mourning Jenny, and she was...well, “sad” was a poor way to describe it, but it was the best she could do. Giving birth had not been as joyful as she had expected, and new motherhood had taxed her beyond her capabilities. Nate had been busy with his own work, and hadn't understood why she wasn't as happy about their baby as he was. She couldn't explain to him well enough that it wasn't Shaun that made her unhappy, but some nameless something that hovered around her and wouldn't let go.

Unlike Nate, Nick had never told her that she was being silly or imagining things, or that admitting she was unhappy meant she was ungrateful for her family. Nick had held her and comforted her and convinced her that everything would be all right.

Together, they had tried to make each other feel better. And they had succeeded. They had been discussing the possibility of her leaving Nate when the war finally let loose.

When she had heard that Nick was in Diamond City, she had almost wept with joy. When she finally tracked him down, though, and he'd asked who she was and why she was there, that joy had shattered inside her. Whatever the doctors at CIT had done to him had apparently destroyed his memories of her. She was grateful now just to travel at his side, and treasure his friendship. Sadly, he didn't seem interested in making it anything more, but she would take what she could get.

“Find anything in here?”

She jumped at Nick's voice; he had entered the room without her knowing. “Y-yeah. Here it is. The last tape,” she replied, popping it out of the pipboy and handing it to him. As soon as it passed from her fingers into his metal ones, though, she realized it was the wrong tape.

Too late. He had glanced down and read the label. He frowned, and she took the opportunity to jerk the tape away. She offered him the other, the right tape, but he was looking at her in a way that reminded her so strongly of his human version that her stomach lurched.

“What was that?” he asked quietly.

She hesitated, but arguing with Nick was usually pointless. She replaced the tape in her pipboy and played it.

Nick remained absolutely still, Eddie Winter's voice the only sound in the room. When it ended, they stood in the silence for a long time.

At last, Nora found her voice. “I'm sorry, Nick. I should have told you.”

His head snapped up and he stared at her. “You're sorry? I'm the one who should be apologizing.”

“Why? Why should you apologize for something you don't even remember?”

He closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “Because...I do remember.”

She let that sink in a moment. “Nicky...then why didn't you say something?”

He laughed then, and shook his head. “The last time we were together, we were talking about making a life together, having a family of our own.” He spread his hands, gesturing at himself. “Look at me. I didn't expect you to feel the same way about me that you did about Nick. Why would you? I'm battered and broken. Not even human. That'd be a terrible burden to put on you.”

“Burden?” she repeated, genuinely confused. “What burden?”

“Having to let me down easy. I know you. You wouldn't want to hurt me, and you'd tie yourself in knots trying to figure out how to tell me it was over two hundred years ago. I already knew that, so I didn't see any reason to force you to say it out loud.”

Nora stood for a moment, her mind racing with a hundred thoughts, but only one of them mattered. “I still love you, you stubborn idiot, I think even more than I did when you were human.”

His eyes widened. “What? I couldn't have heard you correctly....”

“I still love you. You think I care what you look like? You think that matters to me? How shallow do you think I am?” She smiled at him to take the edge off her words, but waited, clearly expecting an answer.

He stumbled a little. “I don't think you're shallow, but doll, expecting anyone to love someone in this body--”

“Stop. Just stop. You've wasted enough of our time together. Actually, we both have.” She crossed the distance between them in one quick stride and took his hands in hers, unflinching as her fingers closed around the bare metal of his right hand. “Just for the record, I think you are amazingly handsome, I don't care that you have scars, and I should have told you I still loved you the moment I found you in that vault. If you really had needed reminding of who I was, then I should have reminded you. But I didn't want to force my attentions where they weren't wanted.” She tightened her grip on his hands. “Am I? Forcing my attentions where they aren't wanted?”

When he answered, his voice was low and a little rougher than normal. “No. No, you aren't.”

She felt something in her chest loosen, fear giving way to the unfamiliar feeling of absolute bliss. “Oh, Nick. We've lost so much time.”

He slipped his hand from hers and brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek; neither paid heed to the fact that it was his right hand. “We've been _given_ time, dollface. We both should have been dead two hundred years ago, but here we are. Together.”

Her eyes welled with tears and she flung her arms around his neck. “You always did know how to make me feel better.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist in return. “Likewise, sweetheart. Likewise.”

She pulled back, and he leaned down to give her a tender kiss. It felt different than she remembered, and yet it was so familiar that a sob rose in her throat. She knew she had missed him fiercely, but until now she hadn't truly realized how badly she still needed him. He broke the kiss to check on her, but she drew his face back to hers. He kissed her gently, lingeringly, as if the kiss might last forever.

And that was perfectly fine with her. Suddenly, it felt like they had all the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt at the Fallout Kink Meme that requested the scenario for Version Two, even supplying the text for the holotape (which I thought was great). A commenter added how interesting it would be if Nate were Nick's companion instead of Nora, as it would be a hell of a way to find out your wife was cheating on you with your friend. I liked both ideas, so here they are. :)


End file.
